Tandberg from the 70's are collectors items and since I actually worked one summer at Tandberg in the early 70's they bring back good memories for me. The latest generation of receivers (2nd version of Huldra 10, Huldra 11, and Huldra 12) had ceramic filters for the 10.7 MHz intermediate frequency for FM. It is also known that these filters deteriorate leading to reduced sensitivity over time.

SV8YM has pointed out that ceramic filters deteriorate due to DC on the terminals, especially the output terminal and that this leads to electromigration. In the Huldra 10, both filters have 7.1 V DC on the input. Filter F1 has 0 V DC on the output, while F2 has 2.1 V on the output.

27 December, 2017

These last few days I've been experimenting with my QRPLabs Ultimate 2 and Ultimate 3s transmitting on 7 MHz. In addition to WSPR, the modes transmitted have been FSKCW with 6 second long dots, and Slow Hell with 17 second long characters. The result as received this morning can be seen on the display from the grabber of Les, G3VYZ in Northumberland, UK. This is a stack of 6 consecutive 10 second frames as can be found on the QRSS grabber site of AJ4VD.

FSKCW and Slow Hell reception of LA3ZA at G3VYZ

My signal is on 7,039.870 kHz and has been set up with a FSK shift of 6 Hz. Power output was 0.2 W and the distance is about 890 km.

It works but the reception is much less reliable than for WSPR, which is not so unexpected. At the same time the WSPR signal was received all around Northern Europe (G, GM, DL, ON, OE, LX, LA, OY, OH, PA, SM) as well as on the Canary Islands, 3930 km away.

11 June, 2017

The Chinese Pixie transceiver operating at 7023 kHz has become very popular. It often costs less than 5 USD on Ebay. Like most Pixies it is susceptible to broadcast breakthrough and intermodulation. Much of this is caused by the keying circuit of the audio amplifier, the LM386. The cure is to move the muting diode from the power supply pin (no. 6) to the bypass pin (no. 7). I have described this in another blog post with title: "Using pin 7 of the LM386 to reduce BCI and add side tone to Pixie 2".

Here are two pictures that show how this can be done for the Chinese Pixie. One needs an additional resistor in the range 10 - 51 ohms. If you can fit it, then use the large 51 ohms resistor that come with some of the kits (I think it is meant for a dummy load). I have used 10 ohms in the picture. It replaces the old R3 of 1 k. The diode D3 is not mounted in the holes provided, and instead it is mounted under the PCB with the minus (denoted by the ring) connected to where D3's minus was, and the plus side connected to pin 7 of the LM386.

R3 is indicated by the lower left arrow, and the old
placement of D3 is shown with the upper arrow

23 February, 2017

Ultimate 3S with 5-band relay module in front,
variable LM2596 power supply (with voltmeter) for
the power amplifier behind left,
a variable LM2596 supply set for 5 Volts for the Ultimate 3S
in the middle, and the antenna switch to the right in the back.

WSPR - The system for Weak Signal Propagation Reporter makes it easy to compare antennas if your transmitter can instantly switch antennas. The system shown here can send on antenna 1 for almost two minutes and then switch immediately to antenna 2 for the next transmission.

The circuit is controlled from pin D7 and consists of a transistor, a relay, a resistor and an electrolytic capacitor. In addition I have two LEDs that indicate which antenna which is in use. In the first picture the green LED in the back right under the BNC antenna connector shows that antenna 1 is connected.

27 November, 2016

The last issues of QEX have featured two interesting articles by Gary Cobb, G3TMG. He outlines the advantage of using Zolotarev designs for the harmonic suppression filters of transmitters, giving even better suppression of the second harmonic than the more common Chebyshev or quasi-elliptic filters.

Chebyshev low-pass filter from the GQRP data sheet (issue 1)

My interest in this was triggered by the test of the Ultimate 3 QRSS/WSPR kit from QRP Labs in the Nov 2016 QST. The review was positive overall, but it was remarked that the harmonic suppression does not meet FCC requirements (-43 dBc or better). I am not sure whether this is due to PCB layout issues, or if better filters can alleviate it, but I note that the design uses the simplest filter of the ones I have listed here.

The evolution of filters for use for harmonic suppression follows at least these three steps:

06 November, 2016

But I needed another Arduino project as I had made a K3NG morse keyer. I love this keyer because it is unique in supporting a display where you can see what you send. But I wasn't using the morse keyer all the time, so I wanted the hardware to serve two purposes. That's the excuse for also making a clock.

Its main features are:

Controlled by a GPS module outputting data over an RS232 serial interface, and handled with the TinyGPS++ library

Shows raw GPS data such as UTC time and date, position, altitude, and number of satellitess

The hardware for the K3NG keyer includes a speed pot and a memory bank selector (to the right) as well as four push buttons on top for selecting memories. The pot now controls the intensity of the display, but the bank selector switch is not used. Of the four push buttons, only button 1 is used. With it one can toggle the clock through various displays as shown below.

22 October, 2016

This small VHF APRS tracker can easily be improved with some simple measures:

The 1 Watt of output power is often too little to reach the desired APRS digipeater reliably enough. It is much simpler to improve the antenna than to add an amplifier and it can be done as follows:

Use a longer telescopic antenna. In the picture I have used an antenna that can be extended from 16.5 cm to 45.2 cm. Depending on how you use the tracker, always extend the antenna as much as practically possible.

Add an external counterpoise or "tiger tail" of length a quarter of a wavelength. That's about half a meter. In the picture it is fastened on the antenna's BNC connector by means of an 8 mm ring terminal.

About Me

Welcome to the web site of Sverre Holm, an electronics tinkerer and all around geek with a recent interest in the Arduino. I live in Asker, which is just south of Oslo, and where I work at the University of Oslo.

As radio amateur LA3ZA since 2001, I am fascinated by the magic of Morse code and wish I were better at it. In the picture above I am in a CW pile-up as TK/LA3ZA from Corsica with an Elecraft K2 - my first love in rigs. The K2 was the rig that helped me to a QRP DXCC in 2003.

I like chasing far-away stations and in 2014 I achieved an 5-band DXCC with ≥100 confirmed countries per band (80, 40, 20, 15, 10m) and then also the 3 WARC bands (30, 17, 12m). Most confirmations are with Morse on the highly recommended Logbook of the World. My present K3 station is on QRZ.com.